Idea on The Topic of Languages Based on Assigning Numbers to Things: A General Exploration of Number Assignment Language, The Morals Thereof, and More
By Tiny Dog
In a time of meditating on the beauty of etymology, an idea formed in my brain on how to create a language simpler than English. The formation of new words is bogged down by society's incessant need to assign prefixes and suffixes to words to help better express an idea. Upon reflection, the process of this creation, and the practical usage thereafter, is coated in a thick, slimy film of unneeded complexity. Even two-letter prefixes and suffixes are hard to keep track of during the creation and practice of a language similar to popular ones today, and must be learned through torturous practice; in the case of humans, this process can take decades for those without the gift of Gab, and may even lead to some being afraid of dipping their beaks into the glorious pool of linguistics.
It was when I contemplated this unseen predicament - this cancer of language - that I realized we are in the age where the writing and assignment of numbers to items, as well as the recollection of such, can be done almost instantly, and with great simplicity, by modern computers. I ask, why are we not working to create a universal, common language rooted in numbers where each number represents a thing; an idea, a person, a time, you? Why are some parties in this world, at an apex of their arrogance, refusing to sell outdated cultural pride in exchange for a more rapidly thinking, singular party of humans? In this moment, I deplore those who long for a future of total English. A future where culturally-important and native languages are put away, like old things in a museum. A future where an already existent language is deemed a "superior" language above the other widely-used languages of the world. It is deplorable.
What I posit is an idea for a universal and modern language based in assigning numbers to represent things. Any etymologist worth their salt will tell you that English is a very inefficient language. So, why are so many people of earth pushing for an all-English future? Logistically, the notion of fully integrating English as the dominant language (primarily for commerce) for the approximately 80% non-English speakers in the earth of the near future is a nightmare for anyone who's comprehension goes beyond a basic understanding of the theories in this scenario. I loathe anyone who thinks it will be easy, and I loathe doubly anyone who thinks it is either sane, moral, or plausible. We haven't the funds to do this in a manner in which the effectiveness of it would justify the cost in human and monetary resources. The only people it could benefit would be the government powers. The only thing the schools would teach the masses is how to vote.
Instead, we should push for a method of communication that harnesses our modern potential. We should cast our infantile attachment and nostalgia for the pedestrian languages of today into a street-side waste bin, for they are of the same worth as that of a rotten apple core to a theoretical future human who has traversed forty galaxies. My idea: a language in which numbers are assigned to things. With the computational potential in that of a handheld calculator 30 years old (which is dwarfed in potential exponentially by the computational power of machines in 2021), a basic form of this method of communication is possible. We already have the ability to store numbers and letters - trillions of them - in a storage device as big as an English pea and as thin as silk. Why, I ask, does the international community today refuse to push for a global language like this?
A problem with the idea of a language based in number assignment to things is that the average human brain (already alive in a future scenario at the point in time of a global institutionalization of this number language) that has already been whipped into submission by a language like English could not, to my knowledge, (and I am unsure if anything like this has been tried) be taught how to memorize these numbers in a way coherent to a theoretical human that could fluently speak it. Though, English words are, after all, just sequences of letters. Humans are taught to speak and write from an early age, perhaps it could be simpler if they only worked in memorizing numbers instead of memorizing the maze that is English? Related, English is inefficient for a fast and modern society due to it being rooted in societies without the computational potential of the societies today. If humans are as fluidic in their behaviors as they claim to be, then the only logical idea is that we adapt to the need for faster methods of communication by embracing the idea of a global number language with open arms.
Related to the problem in the above paragraph is the notion that even if a language like the one I am positing was taught to a human from infancy, would they, by the standards of the current point in our mental evolution, be able to practically use this language in an efficient manner without the assistance of extra computational devices? My answer is: no. My question is: why are humans so afraid of taking the leap into full technological dependency; in this case, in the form of devices used to bring about a high level of efficiency when using my language? A good answer is the potential for a catastrophic failure of these computers. If they're connected to a network of the same genus as wireless networks are today, the risk of attacks from hackers or natural disasters causing network failure is high and extremely so. My reply: adapt. We have, in our seemingly insane need to collect information expressed in our artificial intelligence of titanic intricacy, amassed a wealth of data that would make adapting ourselves to this new future something that could be achieved with a speed similar to that of the computers that will generate our future lexicon.
"Adaptation" is the phrase, idea, action, and theory that should be paramount in the minds of tomorrow's linguists, scientists, engineers, and leaders. The need to adapt is ingrained in humans. It is why our lifespans increase. It is why, despite war and famine, plague and pestilence, we endure. It is why, despite the torrent of time, we endure. We have earned the right to correctly call ourselves the masters of adaptation in this universe. To be afraid of and, ever more increasingly, to attempt to resist adaptation is to fight a futile war against the heart of human nature. Futile, because we cannot win against it through any mortal effect of our own doing. The only real deterministic idea is that, by our will or not, we will obey human nature, whether entirely or not entirely. Why fight it? Why speak English? Why resist using technology to help us thrust gleefully into a future of a general earth, a single language, a collective goal? Another human trait is our pride and arrogance, the reason why many will not willingly submit to this future. Fence sitters and the majority of fetishists of modern moral debate will scoff at the idea of culling and ostracizing those who won't submit to a single language. Live in inefficiency, I say to them! It's a fate worse than simple death!
Embracing the human way, which I believe to be a necessary phase in the development and evolution of any human society, must be embraced fully. This means we must, in the future scenario talked about in this article, and for the sake of preserving logical thinking, place the general idea of "morality" below collective societal growth in our mission to advance to the next stage of linguistic and general societal evolution. To help cope with the idea of killing or ostracizing those who disagree with our mission, we must think of the generations after them who, if this mission is completed, will live in efficient grace, united in one society, on one planet, by the thing that unites all peoples on earth - the tongue. Should the soldier feel remorse in dispatching the enemy? No, because if the soldier is driven by an idea so much so that he will swear under oath to take another human life, he must value the idea he swears by more than he values the life of the enemy he killed. Anyone who stands in the way of this mission is an enemy. To anyone who believes in this mission, the life of the enemy should be of less value than the mission, and more so, the wanted outcome of the mission.
To deny the culling of ideologies harmful to the perpetrator's perspective of general societal evolution has never taken place before, I must simply look at history to swiftly bludgeon your argument into a pulpy mush. As to whether or not their actions were justified - would their ideas have actually benefited humanity - is up for debate, and my opinion is that no individual large society - in an ocean of other individual large societies - have ever generally justifiably culled another ideology through human death. My idea for a language based on assigning numbers to things benefits every society. Technically, it benefits one society - the global humanity - but since we are yet to learn of any group of peoples greater than those on our own planet, then the killing of those who resist the forceful institutionalization of this language would be, for the first time ever in humanity, generally justified. While the inner machinations of morality as a human idea could be, to my delight, debated for hours in a seemingly endless maze that, after several hours, would appear to be a circuit, I will refrain since this article is a general article about a new language and was not intended to create an imbalance in the topics therein by delving too deeply into the moral implications of a theoretical future in which this language was institutionalized by a global government, so let's dance into the workings of this language.
My idea for this language is simple enough to be expressed in one paragraph. This is a language that, through the power of our computers today, can be achieved and globally institutionalized. It creates words (words in this case meaning a sequence of characters identifying a specific thing) through numbers. Not letters, not scripts, but numbers. A language that could be read and written in Roman numerals, in Arabic numerals, or in any other form of counting in this universe. A language where a specific number would be assigned to a thing; an idea, a set of ideas, a behavior, et cetera. This language would eliminate our dependency to combine words into sentences to express what my language could express with a single number. Every emotion, every scenario, every point in time - as a number. It saves time. It saves space.
It is possible. It can be achieved.
- Tiny Dog
